My Little Scootaloo

     I woke up to another glorious hangover. I immediately checked the corner – no Scoots. I looked around the still messed up room, eyeing the busted picture frame and accompanying blood spatter with only a slight twinge of guilt. The piece of her mane and skin I’d torn out lay on the floor.

     I got up to make some eggs and as I walked to the kitchen, saw it, a trail of blood and filth leading to my small bathroom. I followed it, and found what remained of the little Pegasus curled up behind the door in a pool of her own blood and urine, sharp, shallow, uneven breaths the only sign she was alive. I stretched and cracked my neck, shaking my head. “It’s your own fault, you know.” I left momentarily, going to the kitchen, my little shred of a conscience demanding that I at least give her food and water. I set a bowl and a couple slices of bread down next to her. “When you can move, you better clean up the mess you made, or I’ll beat you the rest of the way to an early grave, you hear me Scoots?”

     To my amazement, two barely audible words escaped her swollen lips.

     “S-sowwy Daddy.”

     For the first few days she could only lift her head just enough to sip the water. Then eventually she nibbled on the bread, though it had gone stale at that point. Somehow she was alive and recovering. How unexpected! I don’t know if it was magic, or simply the resilience of her youthful body but there’s nothing up to which I can chalk Scoot’s recovery. The only thing that required my attention was fixing her ribs, which I set without too much trouble despite having next to no medical knowledge whatsoever. The rest healed with time. I wasn’t quite sure why I was keeping her alive, but it was something to do, and if I failed, oh well!

     I woke up one fine February morning to another agonizing hangover chorus line, drowning myself in gin to stop the pain. I looked at the calendar across the wall but it was a blur. I reached for my glasses and put those on but nothing changed – I was just wasted. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, and it wasn’t worth me getting up to look yet, but I believed it had been exactly a year since I found Scoots.

     Since her last punishment she’d finally come to accept her fate, and had made no attempts to run away or slip out. She’d even warmed up to me, an exemplary case of Stockholm syndrome.

     As usual I pulled her out from under my pillow - that’s where she sleeps now - and tossed her onto the floor, rolling over to go back to sleep. She always cries when I do that, but these days only out of sadness and dejection, not physical pain. Her wounds were all healed up, and all but the two largest scars – the gash on her cheek and the tear on the back of her neck – had faded and the velvety orange fur had regrown. Even the torn out chunk of mane was growing back, covering her neck scar. She looked unkempt, her mane (and tail) had gotten long and matted during her stay with me, and the shorter part where it had been ripped out didn’t help her appearance any. I guessed I’d have to give her a haircut? That sounded like too much effort for something I didn’t give a flaming fuck about. I was also almost certain she was several inches taller than when I first found her. I don’t know much about pony life cycles but she seemed to be in the midst of a growth spurt. That also may have accounted for her rapid recovery.

     It was remarkable. Despite that savage beatings and the smaller daily cruelties and humiliations she suffered at my hands, she remained attached to me like some pathetically faithful pet that blames its master for nothing.

     “Daddy!” she whined – I HATED that she’d started calling me that – “bed pleeease?”. She stood on her back legs, her forehooves up on the futon grabbing at me as she begged me to let her back in bed.

     “Fine,” I grumbled, “just stay still and keep your trap shut. If you poke me with those bony little wings I’m throwing you outside.”

     *Squee* She squeaked happily as she jumped back up and burrowed under the comforter, snuggling up against me.

     “Don’t fidget,” I growled. She held perfectly still. Sootaloo did as she was told, asked for little, and was sickeningly eager to please. I was still baffled by her misguided affection. Despite all the “games” I’d played with her it seemed as though, lacking any other parental figure, she’d gone through some kind of strange imprinting or bonding process and now considered herself my “daughter”. I considered her my solution…my solution to the problem that I was usually drunk, horny, and pissed off.